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It is easy to imagine that art history is a fixed discipline, full of information rarely subject to change, particularly when it comes to some of the best-known artists in the Western canon. And yet "Monet: Framing Life" – a new special exhibit at the Detroit Institute of Arts – proves how devoted curatorial practice can reveal exciting new insights about works that have been part of the collection for decades.

“This exhibition centers on the sole Monet painting in our collection,” said Jill Shaw, the DIA"s associate curator of European art (1850-1950). “All of the works that we’ve brought in from elsewhere really serve to highlight our work.”

That one piece in question was purchased by the DIA in 1921 — before the end of Monet’s lifetime, which made it a contemporary art acquisition at the time. It first appeared on the public market in 1919, and at that time it was called "Gladioli." The DIA kept that name for nearly a century. Then in the process of revisiting the work for this exhibition, research into inscriptions found on the back of the painting revealed new insight into the work's origins.

“We’ve identified it as being a part of a specific Impressionist exhibition based on a collector’s name that we found on the back. And as a result, we’re now re-titling it to the exhibition title, 'Corbeille de fleurs'," said Shaw. Translated, it refers to what the French called a rounded flower bed.

The presentation of "Rounded Flower Bed (Corbeille de fleurs)" is the culminating moment of an exhibition that centers on works from a single decade (the 1870s) early in the artist’s career, when Monet was perhaps at his most experimental. This was a time when Monet was working closely with other artists in his circle to develop the techniques and aesthetics that are now known as the Impressionist movement.

“At the beginning of the time period of the show, 1871, the Impressionists had not formed as a solid group,” said Shaw. “By the end of the time period of the show, 1878, they’ve concretized as a group — so this is the formative decade.”

In fact, the term “Impressionist” was originally an indictment of the aesthetic, first used by a critic in response to the ways in which Monet and his cohort flouted the current painting conventions of the time, rejecting high-fidelity detail, grandiose subject matter, and hyper-realism — not to mention rejecting the entire structure around the viewing of art.

“Part of the formal Impressionist group was that these artists were getting together to form a new, independent viewing society,” said Shaw, “one that was outside of the academy, and outside of the conservative strictures of the salons, at the time. At its core, the Impressionists were an exhibiting society.”

The group had eight exhibitions of their works, the first of which was in 1874, and it was in that exhibition that a critic panned the artists as “mere impressionists.” Just like the title of the centerpiece of "Monet: Framing Life," the understanding and meaning of the term Impressionist has shifted over time.

In 1877, "Rounded Flower Bed (Corbeille de fleurs)" was included in the third of these Impressionist exhibitions, which was also the first time the group of artists claimed that derisive title with pride in their new vision, calling themselves the Impressionists. Now it serves as the grand finale to the DIA exhibition. Before taking it in, visitors will walk through two galleries featuring 11 works produced during the time that Monet lived in the far-flung Parisian suburb of Argenteuil. Also included in this gallery are two of three works on display by Monet’s close friend and conceptual compatriot, Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

“We have one special guest in the exhibition, and that’s Renoir. We’ve included his works very strategically,” Shaw said. The exhibition begins with a portrait of Monet by Renoir, "Claude Monet (The Reader)" (1873), which features the artist at the age of 31, when he’s just moved to Argenteuil, enjoying a bohemian and pastoral existence, and experiencing just the beginnings of success as a painter.

The first gallery includes works painted en plein air through the seasons around Argenteuil, as was Monet’s preference, as well as a number of tableaux looking in and out from the backyards of various rental properties where he lived with his young family. This section of the exhibition also includes a second work by Renior, "Monet Painting in his Garden at Argenteuil" (1873), which offers a perfect frame of reference for the scenes in which Monet produced some of the works on display. His first wife, Camille, subject of many of Monet’s works, is seen in this gallery, tending to the couple’s young son, Jean.

One of Monet’s most famous works, "Woman with a Parasol" (1875, and also a portrait of Camille) is the focal point of the second gallery. On loan from the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., this is an iconic work by the artist, and one that demonstrates the mastery of a number of his signature techniques, capturing the movement of air and the swirl of veil and skirt, as his wife and child turn to look down a hillside on a windy day. Sharp-eyed viewers will also note bare patches of canvas, the very kind of experimental technique that led to early criticism of his work as unfinished.

All of this leads into the exhibition’s final moment, with "Rounded Flower Bed (Corbeille de fleurs)" enjoying a gallery to itself. It's displayed in a captivating, 360-degree glass case that enables visitors to examine the marks on the back of the frame that led to the revelation of its original title. The painting — also a portrait of Camille, featuring the same parasol with green lining as the one adjacent — seems to hang in space, backgrounded by a wall-sized projection of a garden scene much like the ones that Monet used as inspiration.

This emphasizes the sense of his practice as drawing still paintings out of living moments, and will offer visitors to the museum a flowery respite from the coming season of cold weather. It is easy to regard this as the perfect environment to take the time to learn something new about well-known player in the art canon.

“That’s what’s so awesome about art history,” said Shaw. “People who aren’t art historians may think about it differently — obviously, we’re a humanity, but if you think about it as a science, and that everything is fluid. Our research is changing, and there’s always something new to discover.”

Claude Monet's "The Bridge at Argenteuil," 1874, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon.(Photo: National Gallery of Art, image courtesy National Gallery)

'Monet: Framing Life'

Not included in DIA's regular free admission for tri-county residents. $16 for adults, $7 for ages 6–17. For Wayne, Oakland and Macomb county residents, $10 for adults, $5 for ages 6–17. Free for DIA members. Reserve free tickets (DIA members) or purchase tickets at www.dia.org/Church or www.dia.org/Monet.

Prices include admission to a second major exhibition: “Church: A Painter’s Pilgrimage”

'Church: A Painter’s Pilgrimage'

This exhibit focuses on American artist Frederic Church’s paintings done in the Middle East, Athens and Rome. In mid-19th-Century America, Church became popular and financially successful thanks to his large paintings of wild places in North and South America, the North Atlantic and the Caribbean, according to a DIA press release. But from the late 1860s until the late 1870s, many of his most important paintings represented ancient cities or buildings that he had seen on his 1867 to 1869 trip to the Middle East and the Mediterranean. In contrast to his wilderness paintings, many of these works concentrate on human history.